Re: It\'s tree removal time!
I have about 60% of mine built. The steel for the vertical members is cut but not attached to the beam and tines.
I have been told to run the rake with just the tips of the teeth running through the dirt. The angle of the tines, they should be farther forward at the bottom, will allow brush to roll up the rake and dirt to fall out through the tines. Ideally you would get a rolling motion where at the end you have a tube of brush. It seems more likely that the brush will stack up from the bottom but this is still better than scooping up a bunch of mud.
When you welded the tabs to reinforce that failed section of horizontal angle do you think you could have welded it at 90 degrees so that it would fit into the angle instead of laying on its side? The reinforcement needs to be strong up and down. I suppose you may have needed to torch them to fit and like me, you may not have one handy.
The process with the rake is supposed to be as follows.
1) leave the rake off and walk over everything with the blade 6" off the ground just knocking everything over in the same direction. Do the whole area like this.
2) Then attach rake and run perpendicular to the fallen material pushing the knocked down material into windrows as far apart as your equipment, and the brush density, will allow. 300 feet is about as far apart as the rows should get.
3) burn the rows starting at the upwind/downhill end. Blow with a fan so that the fire consumes the windrow from one end to the other.
Of course the first step is to cut out the merchantable logs but it is getting to the point that that may be more hassle than it is worth.
Lighting these fires is not always easy, I like the propane weed burners shooting into a nice dense stack. On the other thread about fires I like the idea of a diesel soaked straw bale and a fan.
